Christmas: understanding the Incarnation

The Incarnation, and its significance for the Christmas message  

By William Lyon Tupman. Fourth Sunday after Advent – All Saints Church, Hove.

18^th December, 2016. Bible passages used (NRSV): John 1:1-14; Luke 1:34-37; Matthew 1:23; John 3:16-17.

During Advent, we are exploring the Incarnation. Over the past couple of weeks, first our Youth Worker Faron and then Fr. David have offered their thoughts on the Incarnation, and now I’m here to offer you my perspective on what the Incarnation is, and how significant it is in understanding the Christmas message. So, what exactly is the Incarnation? The Prologue of St. John’s Gospel is a good place to start with this.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴ in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 

And it’s that verse we’ve just heard which tells us what the Incarnation is. The Incarnation is the event during which the Word, who was involved in Creation, became flesh, and lived among us. The Word is Jesus Christ. The Word became flesh by when He was born of the Virgin Mary on that first Christmas Day, and He lived among us during His ministry here on the Earth. 

But how is the Incarnation different from any other birth? Well, for a start, most babies are born of two human parents; this is not the case with Jesus. Mary was a Virgin, as we learn in Luke 1:34 when she affirms this to the Angel Gabriel. Gabriel responds in the following verses, explaining that she has conceived by God, in the form of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, being divine, means that God is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shares in His divinity and is also God; Joseph is therefore Jesus’s step-father or foster-father.

As well as the nature of Jesus’s birth being different from anyone else’s, Jesus’s very nature is, at least in part, different to our nature, and this adds to the significance of the Incarnation. The difference is this: Jesus has two natures. But how can someone have two natures? One of the Church councils, the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, concisely explains this; the council arrived at the conclusion that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. He has a human nature and a divine nature, but is still one Person – He is one Person but has two natures. He is the human Jesus who pleaded for the cup of suffering to pass from Him, and who wept, showing human emotions just like ours, at the death of Lazarus in John 11, before showing his divinity by raising him using His miraculous divine command, by walking on the water, performing all of His miracles, and opening to us the gate of life by defeating death.

In just a week, it’s Christmas – the time when we commemorate and celebrate the Incarnation, which is Christ’s birth and therefore God’s very presence on Earth. Because of the Incarnation, in the words of Matthew 1:23, Jesus is Emmanuel – God with us. And He comes to us through, by, in, and because of love. As St. John records in his Gospel, God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son to save us from our sins, that whoever believes in Him may not perish, but have eternal life. The Incarnation is a great gift from God to us, and it’s free for us. God Himself corrects and heals the errors which Adam and Eve made, and thus heals and restores all of humanity with it. God’s offer of a relationship with Him, our salvation, His love and peace are offered to all of us, and we are grateful to accept.

God is with us – physically by the Incarnation, and spiritually He is still with us all today. God is omnipresent; He is present everywhere, at all times and in all places, and He leads us by His example for us to follow, by the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Incarnation and Christmas remind us of this marvellous reality, our forgiveness, absolution and liberation from sin, and the restoration of our relationship with God. And we can all enjoy this relationship with God; whether we are regularly here at Church or not.

Maranatha: Come, Lord Jesus! Amen. 

First Sermon: giving thanks in success; in suffering; through suffering; by the Eucharist

Thanksgiving: in success; in suffering; through suffering; by the Eucharist

By William Lyon Tupman. Preached at the Harvest Eucharist at St. Mary Magdalene’s Church, Bolney.

18^th Sept, 2016. Bible readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Psalm 100, Philippians 4:4-9, John 6:25-35.

May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and redeemer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Today we celebrate our harvest service here at St. Mary Magdalene; but why do we celebrate the harvest, and how can we celebrate it? 

We can celebrate harvest by thanksgiving. Thanksgiving comes in a variety of forms – you might have said “thank you” to the person who held the door open for you this morning, or perhaps you felt thankful on Friday when you got home from work without – too many – of the usual rush hour delays (?!). 

The harvest is a good time for us to remember God’s goodness to us, what He has done for us, by creating us and the world, and what He does and will do for us by sustaining us. There are many examples of thanksgiving we can relate to and offer. Some of the ways how and the reasons for us offering our thanks to God can be seen if we glance over today’s readings again. 

We can give thanks for God’s creation. He created us, as Psalm 100 which we heard today says, adding that “we are his.” He has even created us in his own image, as we’re told in Genesis. This is one of many reasons we can be thankful to God; that we are all here because God has made us. 

We can all enjoy what God has created – the whole world. God has entrusted the world to us to possess as a gift, as we see in the reading from Deuteronomy, and that we can harvest and enjoy fruit, produce and other resources from the land today. 

I also feel it’s important to remember that God openly invites us all to partake in the harvest. Towards the end of our reading from Deuteronomy, there is an invitation to celebrate the goodness and gifts that God gives “together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you”. I see this as an invitation for us, the Church and her mission, as this community gathered here today, to celebrate the harvest with everyone else, anyone who isn’t here today – or wouldn’t normally be here. God’s invitation and His gifts are here for all, since we are all created and sustained by Him. 

We can be thankful to God because He sustains us.  The Church believes in the omnipresence of God – that is to say, God is here and is present with us everywhere, sustaining the creation He has lovingly made for us. As we heard in Psalm 100, God is good – His love endures forever, and He is faithful to all generations. 

So, Psalm 100 and Philippians are very emphatic about giving thanks to God, saying we should “make a joyful noise” to the Lord, and to “rejoice” for everything we can think of that is good and worthy of praise. Now if things are going well, or if something particularly good has just happened in your life – perhaps the birth of a family member – you’ll naturally feel like rejoicing, giving thanks, or if you’re musical making a joyful noise. 

But sometimes it is hard to give thanks. There is suffering in the world. Too often the news reminds us of the unrest and violence in parts of the world like Syria; we’ve seen the recent earthquake that shook and devastated parts of Italy; we see the homeless in cities not far from here, such as in parts of Brighton and Hove. There are crimes, illnesses, we suffer bereavements of loved ones, and there are many other things which can really make it very hard at times to be thankful for our lives, or for the world we live in. 

Often when one suffers, it is so easy to ask, “Where is God in all of this?” or, “Why me?” or, “If God is all-loving and all-powerful, why didn’t He intervene to prevent whatever bad has happened from happening?”. We turn to God in prayer, and it’s almost like we expect God to answer in a particular way – perhaps the way in which we think the problem should be solved. 

But it’s not that God doesn’t care about suffering; He cares greatly. The fullest extent of God’s love and empathy is seen by how He sent His son to die on the cross, to save us from our sins, before rising again in glory. God knows everything that suffering can entail, and more. 

Humanity is most often to blame for suffering. Thinking back to Genesis 1, humanity was given stewardship over God’s creation when He entrusted it to us. This gift comes with a responsibility to care for our world. And yet, it is so often the failings of humanity which results in suffering, such as when terrorism and other evils occur.

Thinking again about any problems we may face today, we might ask ourselves the question: “What would Jesus do?” In Philippians, Paul says we should “not worry about anything,” which is exactly what Jesus tells us in Matthew’s Gospel when preaching His sermon on the mount. Is this a cop-out? Well, no, it’s not. The Church believes that God is omniscient, or all-knowing. He is infinitely superior compared to us; while He has made us intelligent human beings, our intellect cannot compare with His infinite qualities. In Philippians we see how God offers us His peace, even though it surpasses all understanding – all understanding, apart from God’s. 

When we turn to God in prayer, in supplication or petition as well as praise, we can be assured that God will answer our prayers. That’s a guarantee: God will answer all of our prayers. At times, He might not answer them in the ways we anticipate, or feel best or want. But He knows what is best for us; what we need is to have faith that God knows what is best for us, and at an opportune time, God will reveal this to us when we are ready. Just as God promised the previously alienated Aramean in Deuteronomy much land and many descendants (two of the most desirable possessions in Old Testament times), God provides for us today, and will provide for us in the future. He will lift us out of any difficulties we are in. What we need to do is to trust God in this. Jesus throughout the Gospels emphasises the importance of having faith, in order for many of His healing miracles to work. Is this a cop-out? Well, no, it’s not. We’re not letting God off the hook, as He doesn’t let Himself off the cross. 

We can be thankful that God never abandons us, or loses faith in us. There’s a beautiful poem called “Footprints” by Carolyn Carty, where she describes a time when having walked along the beach with the Lord for a while, suddenly only one set of footprints were visible – at the hardest time of her life. But in the final stanza, we learn this wasn’t the Lord abandoning her in times of despair – it was then that the Lord lovingly carried her. 

I can certainly relate to this; in the past, there have been times I have experienced loss and bereavement in my life, and this brought me a temporary period of suffering and unhappiness. But it was also this time when I realised my absolute dependence on God, and from these times onwards particularly I turned to Him in prayer. Now, I am so thankful that I am now very happy, and I lead a good, successful and blessed life. This is all thanks to God, His goodness, His guidance, Himself and working through others – family, friends. At times in the past, I found it hard to see where God was in my life. I now see how active He has been, and how active He is in my life. If we have faith and trust in God, God will lift us out of all of our afflictions; for this we can be truly thankful. 

St. Paul in today’s reading tells us if we keep on giving thanks, God himself will be with us – God’s peace and His very self, and we are all invited to experience this when we encounter Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. The word “Eucharist” – which we are all invited to partake of today – comes from the Greek, “eucharisteo,”meaning to be thankful. The Eucharist is a formal act of thanksgiving we show to God as His Church. When Jesus instituted the Eucharist he gave thanks, before giving Himself to all his people, just as He did at the Feeding of the 5,000. It is an act of thanksgiving through His suffering. 

Every time we partake of the Eucharist, here in the present, we participate in the one perfect sacrifice Christ made for us. He instituted the Eucharist while He was on the earth, and it gives us a foretaste of the Heavenely Banquet. This is the same sacrifice we participate in. Jesus in today’s Gospel reading tells us to work for the food that endures for eternal life – which Jesus Himself gives us. Also, you’ll notice that Jesus in today’s Gospel speaks in the present tense. We see how the bread of God comes down from Heaven, and gives life to the world, and that Jesus says “I am the bread of life”. We are invited to come to Him, so that we will never be hungry, and whoever believes in Him will never be thirsty. These “will never” sayings are in the future tense, and to me are an invitation, a wish of His for us to proclaim and celebrate the Eucharist until He comes again in Glory. All of us can be truly thankful for this foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet – which Jesus tells us will be “Paradise,” as he says to those crucified with Him in Luke’s Gospel. God so freely offers us this to all of us. 

I would like to invite you to pray with me this prayer of St. Richard. Let us pray. Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have given us, for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us. Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. Amen. In the name of God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.